Kindred

Octavia Butler

The Rope and Epilogue

Key Facts

1.

“The
boy already knew more about revenge than I did. What kind of man
was he going to grow up into?”

Dana makes this observation about Rufus
in part 2 of “The Fire.” In this section,
Dana returns to the past for the second time to save Rufus from
a fire he started himself. Rufus set his draperies ablaze in retaliation
against his father, Weylin, who whipped him for stealing a dollar.
The brutality of the punishment is striking to Dana, who comes from
a culture in which children are rarely spanked, let alone whipped.
At this point in the story, Dana is still easily shocked. She has
not grown accustomed to the bloodiness of the past. Yet even at this
early stage in the novel, and in Dana’s and Rufus’s relationship, the
tenor of their relationship has been established. Rufus comes from
a violent world, and he is being raised (and neglected) to be a violent
master. Although he is still a child, Rufus already lives an existence
in which whippings are a commonplace, and fits of pique result in
fires. Although Dana does not answer the question she poses here
(“What kind of man was he going to grow up into?”), we can guess,
along with her, that he will grow up to be the kind of man his father
is: harsh, powerful, and cruel.

2.

“‘Don’t
argue with white folks,’ [Luke] had said. ‘Don’t tell them ‘no.’
Don’t let them see you mad. Just say ‘yes, sir.’ Then go ’head and
do what you want to do. Might have to take a whippin’ for it later
on, but if you want it bad enough, the whippin’ won’t matter much.”

In this quotation, which comes from
part 7 of “The Fall,” Luke, a slave, advises
his son, Nigel, about how to interact with white people. From Weylin’s
perspective, Luke gives satisfaction. He does his work, and he keeps
others in line so effectively that he is made overseer. Initially,
Dana finds Luke inspiring. He shows her a way to hide one’s internal
rebelliousness with an external appearance of servility. Yet later
in the novel, she finds that Luke’s carefully calibrated behavior
is not enough to save him from disaster: Weylin sells Luke for so-called
insubordination. As Rufus puts it, Luke is sold for carrying himself
like a white man. Yet the point is not that Luke has let his mask
of servility slip, incurring Weylin’s wrath, or that open rebellion
is less dangerous than quiet rebellion. Rather, the point is that
slaves’ behavior is mostly irrelevant. They may be sold for profit;
they may be sold on a whim; they may be sold as punishment for a
mostly imaginary crime, as Sam is; they may be kept around for no
reason, or in spite of rebellious behavior. They are not in charge of
their lives, and their attitudes and actions, even when carefully managed,
like Luke’s, are far less important than the caprices of white people.

3.

“[Tom
Weylin] wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes
did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper.”

Dana makes this observation in part 6 of
“The Fight.” Rufus has just said that Weylin would never whip Dana
for something Rufus told her to do, because it is her duty to obey
Rufus. He sees this theoretical forbearance as evidence that his
father is a fair man. While Dana does not agree with Rufus’s characterization
of Weylin as fair, she does believe that Weylin must be analyzed
in the context of his time period. This quotation is just one of
several instances in which Dana observes that Weylin is not as bad
as he could be, that he is not as cruel as some of the other men
of his day. Butler may intend for us to agree with Dana’s interpretation.
Perhaps a slave owner who whips people to punish them is less hateful
than a slave owner who whips people to indulge his own appetite
for cruelty. On the other hand, Butler may intend for us to interpret
Dana’s grudging sympathy for Weylin as evidence that her stay in
Maryland has warped her judgment beyond repair. If morality is absolute,
no slave owner, however fair or unfair, may be absolved.

4.

“I could
recall walking along the narrow dirt road that ran past the Weylin
house and seeing the house, shadowy in twilight, boxy and familiar
. . . I could recall feeling relief at seeing the house, feeling
that I had come home. And having to stop and correct myself, remind
myself that I was in an alien, dangerous place.”

This quotation comes from part 1 of
“The Storm.” Dana has just returned from months in the South; Kevin
has returned from a five-year stint there. Both characters feel
dislocated, as if they have forsaken their real home, Maryland,
for a place they no longer recognize. While Dana’s disorientation
is not as a severe as Kevin’s—he can’t remember how to operate household
items, and his accent has changed—she shares his discomfort with
the modern era. More disturbingly, she shares his sense that the
Weylin house has become home. Dana’s increasing familiarity with
the Weylin plantation accompanies her decreasing independence. The
more time she spends in Maryland, the less she thinks of herself
as her own person. In Maryland, everyone around her sees her as
a slave—a slave with special privileges and otherworldly powers,
but a slave nonetheless. Over time, Dana finds herself in danger
of accepting the identity that has been forced on her. In part,
this is a matter of survival. She can’t behave as a modern woman
would and still hope to avoid death. But in part, Butler suggests,
it is a matter of place. Conformity is unavoidable, and we can conform
to almost any place, no matter how unfamiliar or brutal. Before
Dana knows it, her fear of the Weylin house has changed from instinctual
to intellectual. Fear becomes something she knows she should feel
but does not actually feel.

5.

“[The
slaves] seemed to like [Rufus], hold him in contempt, and fear him
all at the same time. . . . I had thought my feelings were complicated
because he and I had such a strange relationship. But then, slavery
of any kind fostered strange relationships.”

This quotation, from part 11 of
“The Storm,” is inspired by the slaves’ behavior toward Rufus at
the husking party. Rufus has just doled out whiskey and good food.
The slaves shower Rufus with gratitude to his face and ridicule
him behind his back. Dana is surprised to find that the slaves feel
the same simultaneous and contradictory emotions toward Rufus that
she herself feels. They, like she, feel both affection and hatred
for Rufus. A lifetime of enslavement has beaten submissiveness into
the slaves, and they can’t help but appreciate the little scraps
Rufus throws them, the food and alcohol, the small mercies, the
occasional gesture of goodwill. At the same time, though, they despise
him. In the same way, Dana half-loves Rufus. She is grateful for
his occasional kindness, and she can’t help but feel affection for
him. At the same time, she loathes him. Dana recognizes in this
passage that she is not as different from the slaves as she thought
she was, at least in her attitude toward Rufus.